Macgregor

Case Study: Macgregor

Introduction:

Macgregor was the manager of one of the largest refineries in the country. He was working as a refinery manager in an organization. His refinery is considered to be one of the most efficient producing units. He has the oldest equipment in the corporation; actually his refinery was the very first one that the corporation has built. In addition to that, his refinery has a great deal of turnover among his subordinates. Most of them go on to assignment as refinery manager. Macgregor's method of supervision is really beneficial to the corporation. It is the most efficient producing unit and yet training center for refinery manager. A lot of people has wondered how this guy can run a refinery so well and organized.

Macgregor's Modus operandi

Macgregor held a weekly meeting on Thursday between 10:00 AM to noon. That's the only time during the week that he can't have a meeting with anybody else. He was one of the very few managers who said that participative decision making isn't the way to supervise. However, his style is contradicted to most of the manager, he let his subordinate make their decisions freely. He does not make their decision for them and he does not participate in their decision making. A weekly meeting on Thursday was held, so he can be kept informed about how his subordinates are doing and how the problems are solved. This is where he can appraise his subordinate on their managerial decisions and skills, also to find out who is helping who on the operating decision.

On every Wednesday at 2:00 PM, Macgregor and his direct subordinate will get the printout from the computer. It will show their production output against quota and the maintenance superintendent his cost to date against budget. If there is a significant gap between the two, his subordinate will call him and discuss about the discrepancy. Usually, they will tell him what the problem was and how they plan to solve it. If the solution will work, he tells them to go ahead and proceed with the plan. If it does not, he suggests them to talk to one of the other men, and work it out. If they still cannot find a way to solve it, he refers them to the second in command, or the Thursday man. This way he does not get involved in making operating decision. The Thursday man is one of his eight direct subordinates who will run the Thursday meeting when Macgregor has to be away. Macgregor spend his time reading about the journals and article about the industry. This is why he is able to tell his subordinate if their propose solution is going to work or not. Also, he spends times planning for long term strategy. This includes the futurity and irreversibility decisions. These decisions are way in the future and are terribly difficult and expensive to reverse once they are embarked on it.

Job Satisfaction and Performance

Happy workers tend to work better than non-happy workers. Happy worker are generally more productive than others. In order use this job satisfaction and performance effectively; there are three criteria that the worker has to consider. First, the general attitude, job satisfaction is considered to be a general attitude. It does not predict behavior very well. This is because job dissatisfaction can lead to a various outcomes, such as neglect (reducing work effort), voice (attempt to change or complaint), exit (look for another job), and loyalty (patiently waiting for the problem to be fixed). In this case study, people wants to work at Macgregor plants due to the fact that most of his ex-subordinates have reached upper